Replan

Cobra uses the Replan utility to remove variances from any ongoing projects. Typically, a project manager replans a project when the budget no longer reflects the work to be performed.

You can replan an entire project at one time or replan individual codes of the project in either of the following ways:

• Set the budget and the earned value equal to the actual costs:

  (Budget = Earned Value = Actual Costs)

• Set the budget to equal the calculated earned value:

  (Budget = Earned Value)

Typically, Cobra replans only open work packages. However, if you are setting Budget equal to Earned Value and there are planned work packages before the status date, you need to replan the planned work packages to eliminate the schedule variance. Replanning a planned work package when setting Budget equal to Earned Value would set the Budget before the status date equal to zero.

To replan a planned work package, select the Allow planned Work Package to be replanned option in the Replan Preferences section of the Preferences tab of the Project Properties dialog box. To replan a completed work package, select the Allow completed Work Package to be replanned option.

The replanning operation is performed on in-progress work packages. During the replan process, the original work package is broken up into two segments —before and after the status date.

Budget Before the Status Date

Cobra allocates the budget before the status date to a work package with a new name if you selected the Create a new Work Package for replanned Budget/Earned/Actuals option on the Options page of the Replan wizard. Cobra changes the budget for this work package to equal either Actual Costs or Earned Value. Cobra changes the class used for the budget in this work package to Replanned Budget and closes the work package.

If the Create a new Work Package for replanned budget/earned/actual costs option is not selected, the old budget remains in the original work package but with a new class.

Budget beyond the Status Date

The budget that is beyond the status date remains unchanged in the original work package. However, Cobra changes the start date of the original work package to the status date and removes any progress information.

Cobra also performs the following changes:

• If the progress technique used in the work package is % Complete, Cobra changes the completion percentage of the work package to zero.
• If the progress technique used in the work package is Milestones, Cobra moves the completed milestones to the completed work package and leaves the planned milestones in their existing work package.

Replan performs differently based on the level at which actual costs are stored and whether you set the budget equal to earned value or actual costs. For example, if actual costs are stored at the cost account level and you choose to set the budget equal to actual costs, a single work package is created with the name you entered for WP. If actual costs are stored at the work package level, a new work package for each open work package is created. The new work packages use the WP as a prefix along with the original work package ID. Thus, you need to make sure that your work package field length is long enough to accommodate both the prefix you enter and the current ID.

If you use a cumulative to date transaction file to load actual costs and you collect actual costs at the work package level, you will need to modify the query that extracts the actual costs to exclude actual costs before the date of the replan. During replan, resource assignments which have been moved to a new work package will retain their existing codes. Any new resources created for the Replan class will have blank codes.

Use the Replan Preferences dialog box to select the options for running the Replan Wizard. You can also run the Replan process through the API and the Cobra Web Service.